This invention relates to a two-wheeled vehicle or a motorcycle, or more particularly, to a switching system to be mounted on a handle stem of two-wheeled vehicle or motorcycle for properly actuating winking lights to be specifically used for an indication purpose of a right or left turning of the motorcycle.
Commonly, a switch means for actuating the turning signals of the motorcycle is assembled into a small casing with a head knob of an operational lever for changing-over the switch means being arranged to be projected from the casing mentioned above, so that the switch means is capable of being compactly mounted on the handle stem of the motorcycle and further, being operable by just turning the above-mentioned knob with a thumb of a driver's hand grasping a handle grip when the motorcycle is to be turned from its forward travelling direction. However, the switch means of the above-described type is simply arranged to be actuated by selectively turning the operational lever mentioned above toward right and left from a neutral position thereof with reference to a direction to be turned, so that the winking signals prepared for respective turning directions can be correspondingly effected in respective, electrical ON modes. Furthermore, the effect mentioned above is to be cancelled by manually bringing the above-mentioned operational lever back into the neutral position thereof soon after the turning operation is accomplished. The necessity of the switch means involving such a series of complicated actuations has been inevitable for the motorcycle, since such a turning direction indicator system commonly provided for conventional motor vehicle and arranged to be fully automatically controlled in response to the directional turning deviation of a steering shaft with respect to the straight travelling direction, can not be provided for such the motorcycle from a standpoint of difficulties in mechanical arrangements concerned. In spite of an easy technical arrangement to be involved, it is apparent that two staged manual operation inherent in the above-described prior switch means is rendered to be quite dangerous from a standpoint of the safety driving, since the driver cannot help somewhat paying an attention to the above-mentioned operation for every turning of the travelling and thereby, cannot concentrate on steering and holding the handle of motorcycle during travelling.
Recently, to overcome the above-mentioned problems concerning the safety operation of the switch means for actuating the winking lights, a switching system which is provided with a turning signal switch means for actuating and cancelling the change-over mode of the above-mentioned switch means therethrough, has been proposed. More specifically, according to the recent switching system mentioned above, the switching, operational lever is arranged to be held in a backwardly urged state thereof with respect to the driving direction while being capable of being resiliently brought back to the neutral state from the selectively oscillated right and left states thereof. Therefore, a signal for actuating an ON mode of the winking lights can be sent out, soon after the manual oscillation of the operational lever and successive return to the neutral state thereof is accomplished, but however, another signal for cancelling the above-mentioned state can be sent out through a cancelling signal switch means by a forcibly plunging of the operational lever at the above-mentioned neutral state of the switching, operational lever. Therefore, even with the help of the switching system as described in the foregoing, the difficulties involved in actuating the switching system from the standpoint of the safety driving is not satisfactorily dissolved. More specifically, the possibilities concerning erroneous operations for actuating the winking lights, in which the driver may happen to plunge the operational lever at an instance when the operational lever is moved to the extreme right or left position thereof, regardless of the driver's will, is not still avoidable.
Therefore, as long as the switching system described in the foregoing is to be equipped to the motorcycle, there is still such a disadvantage on the part of the driver that he must further constantly share his driving attention with handling the switching system, or more particularly, the operational lever.